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Design Underground/Mechanics of Descent
Robert "Designopatomus" Irving and Eric "Wingman" Peterson discuss the mechanics of Descent, and how Descent: Underground uses those mechanics. * 0:34 - Everyone has a different idea as to what Descent is, but for designers it's the same idea: the gameplay. * 2:17 - Descent is about mechanics of flight in six degrees of freedom. Six degrees of freedom means every direction matters, including turning, rolling, and pitching. As a result, in Descent, your floor can be someone else's ceiling. * 4:02 - As a designer, you have to build levels and maps that take six degrees of freedom into account. * 5:40 - You can drill to create holes to ambush from that weren't there before. * 6:32 - Descent requires situational awareness, because you can hide in more places in Descent than you could in a traditional first person shooter. * 7:20 - Winning Descent is about skill. "You don't win Descent because you're twitchier, you win Descent because you're smarter and you're more skilled." They are adding mechanics that will augment a player's skill. * 9:20 - Mechanics, level design, and skill-based combat are the three design elements they will start with. They are working on getting the flight mechanics just right. * 10:37 - In Descent: Underground, you will still be in a maze, you will still use all six degrees of freedom, but you will play differently based on the ship you are flying. For instance, a scout won't necessarily fight all the time, they will instead give scouting information back to their team. * 12:23 - Everything is subject to change in design. * 14:00 - The community is involved to help make sure that all of the game mechanics are right. * 14:44 - Radar is an idea that has been discussed, and is good for people who are not comfortable with six degree of freedom movement, but radar will not give exact information away. Plus, some asteroids may have terrain, or enemies may have abilities that will not allow radar. * 16:31 - Each role has to have balance. Everyone will be good at something, but are also built to suit playstyles, and not be the one best ship. * 17:06 - The very first ship you play with should be fun all by itself. That will encourage pilots to sample different gamestyles, and still play like Descent. * 17:50 - Some maps or servers will be one ship type only. * 19:11 - They want to have people just play the game, and not worry about having to get the best ship. * 22:02 - They are playing the original Descent games to get a feel for how the old games play. * 23:27 - The new game modes encourage more team play. Anarchy will still exist, but specializations lower the barrier to entry to playing Descent. It's not fun in anarchy to be a new player because the mechanics are not easy to pick up. Matchmaking will also help new players get into the game. * 24:50 - They tease a tournament type that is similar to the World Series of Poker.